Monthly Archives: June 2016

The following is adapted from a speech delivered at Hillsdale College by Heather MacDonald, author of the forthcoming “War on Cops” and “How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Us Less Safe.” She has a BA from Yale, a MA from Cambridge, a JD from Stanford Law and writes for the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.

For almost two years, a protest movement known as “Black Lives Matter” has convulsed the nation. Triggered by the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, the Black Lives Matter movement holds that racist police officers are the greatest threat facing young black men today. This belief has triggered riots, “die-ins,” the murder and attempted murder of police officers, a campaign to eliminate traditional grand jury proceedings when police use lethal force, and a presidential task force on policing.

Even though the U.S. Justice Department has resoundingly disproven the lie that a pacific Michael Brown was shot in cold blood while trying to surrender, Brown is still venerated as a martyr. And now police officers are backing off of proactive policing in the face of the relentless venom directed at them on the street and in the media. As a result, violent crime is on the rise.

The need is urgent, therefore, to examine the Black Lives Matter movement’s central thesis—that police pose the greatest threat to young black men. I propose two counter hypothesis: first, that there is no government agency more dedicated to the idea that black lives matter than the police; and second, that we have been talking obsessively about alleged police racism over the last 20 years in order to avoid talking about a far larger problem—black-on-black crime.

Let’s be clear: police have an indefensible obligation to treat everyone with courtesy and respect, and to act within the confines of the law. Too often, officers develop a hardened, obnoxious attitude. It is also true that being stopped when you are innocent of any wrongdoing is infuriating, humiliating, and sometimes terrifying. And needless to say, every unjustified police shooting of an unarmed civilian is a stomach-churning tragedy.

Every year, approximately 6,000 blacks are murdered. This is a number greater than white and Hispanic homicide victims combined, even though blacks are only 13 percent of the national population. In Los Angeles, blacks between the ages of 20 and 24 die at a rate 20 to 30 times the national mean. Who is killing them? Not the police, and not white civilians, but other blacks. The astronomical black death-by-homicide rate is a function of the black crime rate. Blacks of all ages commit homicide at eight times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined, and at eleven times the rate of whites alone.

The police could end all lethal use of force tomorrow and it would have at most a trivial effect on the black death-by-homicide rate. The nation’s police killed 987 civilians in 2015, according to a database compiled by The Washington Post. Whites were 50 percent—or 493—of those victims, and blacks were 26 percent—or 258. Most of those victims of police shootings, white and black, were armed or otherwise threatening the officer with potentially lethal force.

This incidence of crime means that innocent black men have a much higher chance than innocent white men of being stopped by the police because they match the description of a suspect. This is not something the police choose. It is a reality forced on them by the facts of crime.

The geographic disparities are also huge. In Brownsville, Brooklyn, the per capita shooting rate is 81 times higher than in nearby Bay Ridge, Brooklyn—the first neighborhood predominantly black, the second neighborhood predominantly white and Asian. As a result, police presence and use of proactive tactics are much higher in Brownsville than in Bay Ridge. Every time there is a shooting, the police will flood the area looking to make stops in order to avert a retaliatory shooting. They are in Brownsville not because of racism, but because they want to provide protection to its many law-abiding residents who deserve safety.

Who are some of the victims of elevated urban crime? On March 11, 2015, as protestors were once again converging on the Ferguson police headquarters demanding the resignation of the entire department, a six-year-old boy named Marcus Johnson was killed a few miles away in a St. Louis park, the victim of a drive-by shooting. No one protested his killing. Al Sharpton did not demand a federal investigation. Few people outside of his immediate community know his name.

As horrific as such stories are, crime rates were much higher 20 years ago. In New York City in 1990, for example, there were 2,245 homicides. In 2014 there were 333—a decrease of 85 percent. The drop in New York’s crime rate is the steepest in the nation, but crime has fallen at a historic rate nationwide as well—by about 40 percent—since the early 1990s. The greatest beneficiaries of these declining rates have been minorities. Over 10,000 minority males alive today in New York would be dead if the city’s homicide rate had remained at its early 1990s level.

What is behind this historic crime drop? A policing revolution that began in New York and spread nationally, and that is now being threatened. Starting in 1994, the top brass of the NYPD embraced the then-radical idea that the police can actually prevent crime, not just respond to it. They started gathering and analyzing crime data on a daily and then hourly basis. They looked for patterns, and strategize on tactics to try to quell crime outbreaks as they were emerging. Equally important, they held commanders accountable for crime in their jurisdictions. Department leaders starred meeting weekly with precinct commanders to grill them on crime patterns on their watch. These weekly accountable sessions came to be known as Compstat. They were ruthless, high tension affairs. If a commander was not fully informed about every local crime outbreak and ready with a strategy to combat it, his career was in jeopardy.

For decades, the rap against the police was that they ignored crime in minority neighborhoods. Compstat keeps New York commanders focused like a laser beam on where people are being victimized most, and that is in minority communities. Compstat spread nationwide. Departments across the country now send officers to emerging crime hot spots to try to interrupt criminal behavior before it happens.

Police operating in inner-city neighborhoods now find themselves routinely surrounded by cursing, jeering crowds when they make a pedestrian stop or try to arrest a suspect. Sometimes bottles and rocks are thrown. Bystanders stick cell phones in the officers’ faces, daring them to proceed with their duties. Officers are worried about becoming the next racist cop of the week and possibly losing their livelihood thanks to an incomplete cell phone video that inevitably fails to show the antecedents to their use of force. Officer use of force is never pretty, but the public is clueless about how hard it is to subdue a suspect who is determined to resist arrest.

As a result of the anti-cop campaign of the last two years and the resulting push-back in the streets, officers in urban areas are cutting back on precisely the kind of policing that led to the crime decline of the 1990s and 2000s. Arrests and summons are down, particularly for low-level offenses. Police officers continue to rush to 911 calls when there is already a victim. But when it comes to making discretionary stops—such as getting out of their cars and questioning people hanging out on drug corners at 1:00 a.m.—many cops worry that doing so could put their careers on the line. Police officers are, after all, human. When they are repeatedly called racist for stopping and questioning suspicious individuals in high-crime areas, they will perform less of those stops. That is not only understandable—in a sense, it is how things should work. Policing is political.

On the other hand, the people demanding that the police back off are by no means representative of the entire black community. Go to any police-neighborhood meeting in Harlem or South Central Los Angeles, and you will invariably hear variants of the following: “We want the dealers off the corner.” “You arrest them and they’re back the next day.” “There are kids hanging out on my stoop. Why can’t you arrest them for loitering?” “I smell weed in my hallway. Can’t you do something?” I met an elderly cancer amputee in the Bronx who was terrified to go to her lobby mailbox because of the young men trespassing there and selling drugs. “Please, Jesus,” she said to me, “send more police!”

Unfortunately, when officers back off in high crime neighborhoods, crime shoots through the roof. Our country is in the midst of the first sustained violent crime spike in two decades. Murders rose nearly 17 percent in the nation’s 50 largest cities in 2015, and it was in cities with large black populations where the violence increased the most. Baltimore’s per capita homicide rate last year was the highest in its history. Milwaukee had its deadliest year in a decade, with a 72 percent increase in homicides. Homicides in Cleveland increased 90 percent over the previous year. Murders rose 83 percent in Nashville. In Chicago, where pedestrian stops are down by 90 percent, shootings were up 80 percent through March 2016.

The number of police officers killed in shootings more than doubled during the first three months of 2016. In fact, officers are at a much greater risk from blacks than unarmed blacks are from the police.

We have been here before. In the 1960s and early 1970s, black and white radicals directed hatred and occasional violence against the police. The difference today is that anti-cop ideology is embraced at the highest reaches of the establishment; by the president, by his attorney general, by college presidents, by foundation heads, and by the press.

I don’t know what will end the current frenzy against the police. What I do know is that we are playing with fire, and if it keeps spreading, it will be hard to put out.

You may have noticed that so far in this current presidential election cycle I’ve barely blogged anything about this contentious circus compared to my frequent musings in 2012.

After the last go around with Obama’s reelection I told myself, “never again.” In addition, this current cycle of bomb-throwing, marginally qualified presidential candidates has been discouraging enough to just want it to all go away.

People keep saying how unusual this year’s presidential race is. They’re wrong. It’s an absolutely normal Third World election.

We have three candidates still standing: a self-righteous socialist who’s learned nothing in 50 years except how to rally the economically illiterate and uninformed; an heir to wealth who’s done nothing impressive in 50 years except to hone his skills as a self-promoter and demagogue; and an insider who’s climbed the greasy pole alongside her husband, enriching herself and her family through 50 years of “public service.” Welcome to the United States of Argentina.

At this point, the table is pretty well set. We’ve labored through and survived the ugly primaries and have what are the two most disliked candidates in history. Negative ratings for both are at 57%.

So like it or not, one of them will go to the White House. If you grit your teeth, hold your nose and vote, here, in my opinion, is the critical measure of deciding who to vote for.

There are four really important and critical issues in this election. No other issues really matter.

The Economy – stagnant wages and our national debt approaching $20 trillion require a captain to try and steer the ship to a better recovery.Real GDP growth in the U.S. hasn’t cracked three percent in any year since 2005. This protracted period of sub-par economic growth has created difficult times for many Americans, fueling the anger and frustration of the electorate. I view this growth anemia is being made in Washington, not China or Mexico. Some long-term trends are causing the growth environment to be more challenging, thus heightening the need to reduce the burdens—including regulation, record-high spending, an exorbitant corporate tax rate, and others—being placed on our economy by the government at all levels. Blaming trade and immigration for today’s economic circumstances is a misdiagnosis. According to Bill Clinton, “The problem is, 80% of the American people are still living on what they were living on the day before the crash and about half the American people, after you adjust for inflation, are living on what they were living on the last day I was president 15 years ago. So that’s what’s the matter.” By the way, raising the minimum wage may be popular, and even justified, but it will not improve the economy or ameliorate the income inequality gap in any way.

Immigration – is a disgraceful vacuum of ignoring the law and any logical thinking. We cannot deport 11 million people, but we must have an actual wall or some way of controlling the continued flow of people who want to come across the border. Sanctuary cities are an abortion that must be eliminated, as well as the birthing tourism that grants citizenship to all babies born here. We need a guest worker program with annual adjustments to accommodate the need for low-skilled workers and an enforceable HB visa program that works.

Terrorism – is a major problem all over the world and we’re not immune. We need to become more effective in helping to destroy the savages abroad and prevent the increase in isolated incidents here. Unless we do more to defeat ISIS where they live, the refugee crisis will continue to expand and create problems for everyone standing by. It should be the obligation of the “peaceful Muslim” countries to lead this effort, but we can’t wait because they have not stepped up.

Appointing Supreme Court Justices – the next president is likely to name three new Supreme Court Justices and will set the direction of the Supreme Court for generations. We’ve seen how crucial the Supreme Court is with recent decisions such as overturning laws in 44 states to redefine marriage to include same-sex gay marriage—a ruling that would have been though unthinkable even a few years ago. That’s just one example among many of the Supreme Court’s outrageous and unconstitutional rulings in the past few years.

We could spend a couple of blogs detailing all the negatives about each candidate, but it won’t help anything. They are both almost equally flawed.

The non-critical issues:

Climate control

Income inequality

Women’s issues

Wall Street

Free college tuition

Everything else—all these other “issues”—are secondary and won’t materially affect our lives and that includes the negatives of both candidates. I personally don’t like either candidate as a person. The choice, however, must be which candidate addresses these four issues in a practical way that makes some sense. I will choose to vote for that candidate I think offers the best hope in at least three or my four major issues. I hope you will do the same.

“I’m not sure if being an entrepreneur is genetic, but I can remember starting businesses from a very young age. I grew up on a farm in central Kansas, the youngest of seven children, so the businesses I started rose or fell depending on the receptiveness of a very small sibling customer base. One of my favorite rackets was a map stand that I set up in my family’s living room. I would call the toll-free numbers for tourism bureaus and they would send me their visitor information packages, from which I would extract the maps. I would then try to sell them for 10 or 15 cents to my family members or anyone else who would pass by. Pure profit but very limited demand! The map stand didn’t last long.

“One of my more elaborate enterprises was Tim’s Candy Stand, which was also headquartered in the family living room. I negotiated lower prices for buying candy in bulk from a local drug store, and would then resell it—again to family members, unsuspecting guests, and anyone else who would pass through our living room. My father even had a local handyman construct a display case with lighting and a lock to keep my inventory well lit and secure. This business did much better over a longer period of time, thanks to the consumable nature of the products and the fact that I could specialize in items that I knew would sell; namely, the favorite candies of my limited customer universe.

“So the die was cast at a very young age and much of what I’ve done in my adult life is just a more complicated version of what I did as a child. I can’t really recall what it was that gave me a burning desire to be in business for myself but I certainly recall never much wanting to work for anyone else. Certainly, my father was an independent sort who always worked for himself, so I am sure that observing him was a major influence. Thankfully, my family, parents and siblings indulged (or at least tolerated) my activities, which served as encouragement for me to keep trying the next thing.

“Another one of my enterprises was the launch and publication of a newsletter on my family’s activities and life on the farm. It was called “The Farm Monthly.”

“Since I had no way to reproduce the newsletter, one handwritten copy had to suffice. I put the newsletter in an opaque binder and then charged each person who wanted to read what I had reported on them to have a look. That was my first foray into publishing and the success of “The Farm Monthly” helped move me toward publishing as a career path. Interestingly, the majority of our company’s revenues today are derived from the work that we do for tourism bureaus, which once several decades ago provided the inventory for my map stand. Plus change…the more it changes, the more it stays the same.”

Jim Werner, Seriel Entrepreneur.

“My career started as a banker with a large Canadian international bank which was going to provide a reasonable salary, advancement with on-the-job training and job security. After a few years, there was the opportunity to join a small regional bank in a head office function. In this position, I soon realized that the bank was not particularly interested in my well-being or development and job security was certainly not guaranteed. As a result, when the opportunity arose to get involved in a private company with the chance of ownership, I didn’t hesitate to make the move.

“The primary motivation for leaving a somewhat secure position was to have some control over my destiny. The first opportunity resulted in receiving a share of ownership and, more importantly, it allowed me to make decisions that not only affected me financially but also provided a great deal of satisfaction in seeing the company grow and prosper.

“This first venture was very successful. So after selling that first company, there was no way I could ever go back to work for another organization. I have since invested in and helped four small businesses grow and turn a profit.

“The person who influenced me the most about entrepreneurship was the man I first joined in the public warehouse venture. He convinced me to make the switch from the bank to help run a small business. He was a true entrepreneur, full of ideas and always ahead of the curve.

“My primary motivation as an entrepreneur was to be able to control my own destiny. The greatest satisfaction comes from `making things happen’ that results in a company that grows, is profitable and, most importantly, helps employees achieve their fullest potential.”

Jim gave me as good a definition of an entrepreneur as I’ve heard.

“An entrepreneur is a person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of making a profit.” It is a person who wants to lead and generate new ideas, which is probably as good a definition as you can find.

Not sure how the work ethic started. My first job at age 10 was delivering Mahjong tiles and annual regs for my mother (a Mahjong teacher) and then it was using my bike to deliver for a butcher.

In my teens, it was summer camp jobs as a waiter, dishwasher and assistant salad chef. During high school and college, I delivered personally-printed Christmas cards to high-end department and Fifth Avenue stores and filled in on routes for the Silent Watchman Time Clock Company.

Perhaps the greatest influence on my entrepreneurial exploits came from sales jobs and seven or so years as an active member of the Phoenix Jr. Chamber of Commerce. I learned something about leadership and people interactions, community involvement, and the running of small business-type projects.

The Jaycees itself was a small business and serving on the board and as treasurer was very instructive. I was always independent, but the Jaycees taught me a lot about organizing and delegating.

At the same time, I worked for the Electric League and my principal mentor was Dick Reucker. He improved my abilities in every direction and taught me “when two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.”

The pay at the League wasn’t great, but it was the best job I ever had. I thought, “This is where I should stay forever.”

As I approached middle age, I felt my current position with the Electric Association in Los Angeles was somewhat tenuous. The utilities were being pressured to get out of the promotion business and that was our main thrust.

I thought I had three choices: get a master’s degree (classrooms never thrilled me), look for a new job (the hardest job in the world and something I didn’t enjoy) or resurrect an old idea of starting a marketing promotion agency.

In my blog on 3-16-16, “Using Adversity to Advantage),” I described my launch pad to become an entrepreneur. The opportunity presented itself and I had enough confidence at that point to dive into the unknown.

It was more exciting than I could ever have imagined and carried me for almost 30 years.

Worldwide, the Muslim population is estimated to be about 1.7 billion people. That represents 22% of the world’s population and second to only the largest religious group, Christianity, which has 2.04 billion followers.

Here in America there are only about 2.6 million adherents, only one-half of 1% of our total population, a very small segment of our community.

Although only a small sliver of our country, there appears to be an increasing number of jihadist attacks here on our soil. In addition, this small segment of our population appears to be asking for more and more special treatment in a number of areas.

The newly-arrived Muslims apparently came here seeking a better life; but now here, they seem to want to bring us their old ways.

So, beginning here and some follow-up blogs, we’ll try to examine and discuss the Muslim and jihadist influences that contribute to a cloud of uncertainty and possible danger to our way of life.

Part I: ISIS and their goal to conquer the world

Part II: What’s going on here in the U.S.

Attempts to impose Sharia Law

Demands for special treatment

Influencing college students

Why all the political correctness?

Where is the Muslim community?

The threat – real or imagined?

Part III: Islam – Facts or Dreams, a perspective from the prosecutor in the bombing of the1993 World Trade Center trial

Part IV: What we need to do to keep us safe

So, to begin with, let’s address our first area—who is ISIS and what to make of their goals to “conquer the world.”

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is an active extremist Islamist rebel group and self-declared caliphate in the Middle East and North Africa which claims to be a sovereign state, and as such has made announcements of territorial control and aspirations of worldwide control. No other nation has recognized ISIL as a state. Its goal is the creation of an Islamic state and finally, a worldwide caliphate, in accordance with Salafi Islam, by means of military jihad. (“Levant” is a term that means, the eastern Mediterranean. ISIL and ISIS, the Islamic State of Syria are the same. President Obama refers to them as ISIL. Almost everyone else calls them ISIS.)

The foundation of ISIS lies in the fundamental conflict between the Sunni and Shiite factions in the Islamic community. It’s a complicated conflict that we have neither the space or understanding to explore here.

It is estimated that ISIS currently exercises control over some 10 million people in an area that might be as large as 30,000 square miles in Syria and Iraq, about the size of the state of Indiana.

In addition, either directly or through affiliates, they are increasingly involved in eight other countries. They are thought to have about 30,000 soldiers under their command, a three-fold increase since 2013.

If you’re having a hard time figuring out how much of a threat ISIS poses to the U.S., you’re hardly alone.

To be sure, nothing grabs our attention like the barbaric series of videotaped beheadings of Westerners, as well as the wholesale rape and pillage of all the towns they capture. Almost every month now we are shocked by the suicide bombings in Brussels, Paris, San Bernardino, Turkey, Ft. Hood, Boston, Little Rock and dozens of other places here in the U.S. and around the globe.

Such horrors generate a visceral bloodlust as they march toward their goals of bringing this rampage to the entire world in the name of Allah.

It is simply incredible that on this planet a jihadist group comprised of about 30,000 savages can wreak this much destruction and still sit down to dinner tonight without any fear of reprisal.

President Obama has declared ISIS the Jayvees and said the U.S. military and our allies are determined to destroy them. His dilly dallying has needlessly contributed to cost thousands of lives and the humanitarian crisis of millions of refugees.

Just one day before radical Islamist terrorists from ISIS went on a murder spree in Paris, President Obama declared that ISIS was “contained”! And the media have virtually ignored that colossal misjudgment!

Singing the same tune, Secretary of State John Kerry said, “Given how ISIS fighters scattered the minute we hit them as they tried to take the Kurdish city of Erbil, these guys are not 10-feet tall and not as disciplined as everybody thinks.”

On the other hand, former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said, “They marry ideology with a sophistication of strategic and tactical military action. They are tremendously well funded by capturing so many oil fields. “This is beyond anything we’ve seen,” according to Hagel, “and we must prepare for everything.” (That may explain why he got dismissed so quickly.)

We are repeatedly told that Islam is a religion of peace and the jihadists are only a fringe sect scorned and repudiated by the mainstream of Muslim clerics and scholars. (I wish they’d express that scorn more loudly.)

Even the New York Times, one of President Obama’s staunchest supporters, has joined the chorus of critics on his lack of leadership and transparency. “President Obama has not made the case for expanding America’s role in the fighting, nor has he given a forthright assessment of the resources that would be required.

“Since Mr. Obama authorized the first airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in 2014 to curb the rise of the Islamic State, administration officials have been vague, and at times disingenuous about the evolution of a military campaign that has escalated sharply.

“White House officials initially pledged not to commit ground troops to the effort. They later deployed small teams on the ground, which have been conducting raids in Iraq and Syria.

“The Pentagon has refused, in recent days, to disclose how many American troops are deployed in Iraq. Last year, Mr. Obama set a cap of 3,870 American troops, but the Defense Department has been exceeding it by not counting service members on short temporary assignments and those who overlap for a short period with units that are being replaced.

“Mr. Obama has not made a clear argument that giving the Pentagon free rein can lead to greater success against ISIS. It seems inevitable that the next president will be dealing with this fight. Mr. Obama would do his successor a favor by being frank with the American people about the struggle and choices ahead.”

A promising report from David Ignatius of the Washington Post, who accompanied our CentCom Commander on a recent tour of Iraq and Syria.

He said, “Our military appears to be at an effective level of strength with advisors, trainers and special forces. Obama took quite a while to inject enough troops, but we are seeing some progress in demeaning the role of ISIS.”

“The government of Iraq,” according to Ignatius, is a corrupt disaster not respected by anyone.”

The background sources of information in preparing these blogs came from the following: Wikipedia and Google, New York Times, David Horowitz’s Freedom Center, Thomas Moore Law Center, and Frank Gaffney’s Secure Freedom

We’ll pick up with Part II next month and discuss what is going on here in America, as well as the political divergence on this subject.

Various lists of the Wonders of the World have been compiled from antiquity to the present day, to catalogue the world’s most spectacular natural wonders and man-made structures.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is the first known list of the most remarkable creations of classical antiquity; it was based on guidebooks popular among Hellenic sightseers and only includes works located around the Mediterranean rim. The number seven was chosen because the Greeks believed it represented perfection and plenty, and because it was the number of the five planets known anciently, plus the sun and moon.

The Original Seven Wonders of the World:

The Colossus of Rhodes

The Great Pyramid of Giza

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The Lighthouse of Alexandria

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

The only one that still exists is the Great Pyramid of Giza outside of Cairo.

Lists from other eras:

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, some writers wrote their own lists with names such as Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages, Seven Wonders of the Medieval Mind, and Architectural Wonders of the Middle Ages.

Typically represented were:

Stonehenge, England

Coliseum, Rome

Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, Alexandria, Egypt

Great Wall of China

Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, China

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy

Other sites sometimes included on such lists:

Taj Mahal, Agra, India

Cairo Citadel

Ely Cathedral, Cambridgesire, England

Cluny Abbey, France

The Seven Wonders of the Modern World

Chunnel Tunnel, England/Europe

CN Tower, Toronto

Empire State Building

Golden Gate Bridge

Itaipu Dam, Brazil/Paraguay

Netherlands Sea Protection

Panama Canal

Natural Wonders of the World

Compiled by CNN:

Grand Canyon

The Great Barrier Reef, Australia

The Harbor at Rio de Janeiro

Everest

Northern Lights

Paricutin Volcano, SE Mexico

Victoria Falls, Africa

The New Seven Wonders of the World

Selected by 100 million voters:

Taj Mahal, India

Petra, Jordan

Christ Redeemer, Rio, Brazil

Coliseum, Rome

Great Wall of China

Machu Picchu, Peru

The Seven Wonders of My World

Iguzu Falls, Brazil/Argentina

Antartica

Machu Picchu, Peru

Panama Canal

Pyramids of Giza, Cairo

Abu Simbel on the Nile, Egypt

The migration of animals between Kenya/Tanzania

The Seven Wonders of Our Modern World

The Automobile

The Flush Toilet

The Radio

The Airplane

The Television

The Side View Mirror

The Internet

Plus the fax, the computer and the mobile phone.

And The Seven Wonders of My Personal World

I’ve…

Made it to age 85

Overcame a severe low vision problem

Been married three times

Helped five people become millionaires, and only two were ex-wives

Been able to travel to over 40 U.S. states, 80 countries and all seven continents

Helped raise two children who have a strong work ethic and good basic values

Have a solid, nurturing and fulfilling relationship for over 20 years.